1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to polymer nanostructures and, more specifically, to a method of synthesizing aligned polymer nanostructures.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Aligned nanowires of inorganic semiconductor materials have important applications in photonics, electronics, sensing, bioscience and energy science. Highly desirable in such applications is cost-effective growth of high quality, patterned and uniformly aligned nanowires on a large scale. Aligned inorganic nanowire arrays can be grown using either the vapor-liquid-solid and vapor-solid-solid process at high temperature (>˜500° C.) with the assistance of catalyst particles, or the seed assisted chemical growth at low temperature.
There is an emerging need to fabricate high-performance polymer nanowire (PNW) based nanodevices for flexible electronics and photonics, but the above approaches are likely inapplicable for such purpose. Although templating, chemical synthesis, and even a few ion generating techniques have yielded some such devices, they do not lend themselves to simple and scalable techniques for producing high quality and controllable polymer nanowire arrays with the ability to pattern these polymer nanowires over a large scale.
Fabrication of polymer nanowire arrays of functional polymers has important applications ranging from printable electronics, to implantable synthetic human muscles to sensors and wires in smart clothing. Thin films of conductive polymers such as PEDOT:PSS (poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) poly(styrenesulfonate)) have been used to develop organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), flexible displays and organic solar cells. Semi-crystalline PVDF (polyvinylidene difluoride) is widely exploited for its high Young's modulus and unique piezoelectric properties. While most organic devices are based on thin film configurations, patterned and aligned polymer nanowires could be used in improving integrated miniaturization of flexible electronics, including sensing textiles, bio-feedback devices, and flexible displays.
Therefore, there is a need for cost effective, scalable system for synthesizing aligned polymer nanowires.